Applicant invented geo-diving technology as documented in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/686,518 filed 14 Apr. 2015, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. The geo-diving technology may be used for penetrating the earth or geologic formation without extraction of all of the material from a borehole. It involves an apparatus that includes means peculiar to displacing material to form a borehole while refilling the borehole above the apparatus while the apparatus is in the earth or geologic formation. The present invention is an adaptation of the geo-diving technology that enables injection of a liquid or other fluid into the geologic formation to harden the geologic formation against subsidence, to enhance foundational support of surface structures, or to accomplish other purposes.
The earth is the structural foundation support for both human lives and all of humanity's various roads, bridges, houses, buildings and structures. It is well known that mankind greatly relies on the strength and support that the earth provides and that humanity always expects this strength and support to be there for our use.
Unfortunately, many times the strength and support of the surface of the earth is an ongoing process of geologic change, and what may have been at one time a solid surface in order to build a heavy building or structure, may at a later date be an area of soil instability which can lead to severe property damage or even the collapse of structures that have been build there.
There can be many different geologic layers that cause soil instability. Some of these, for example, are earthquakes, settling of soil that was backfilled, changes in underground water pathways, decay and changes in soil layers, and the seemingly ever more common sinkholes seen on the news.
Civil engineers introduce a variety of materials in a geological formation to stabilize soils, or improve subgrades in the subsurface layers adjacent the surface of the earth. Subsurface stability requirements are common when seeking to improve subgrades for example for airport runways, railroad tracks, streets, and, improving the slopes to prevent their sliding collapse.
Architectural engineers and structure builders using modern construction practices are sometimes involved in pretreating bridge and building sites in order to improve the foundational support strength and water flow characteristics of soils. For example, lime slurries have been worked into the top layers of soil to as deep as two feet to stabilize the base soils. Others have injected furfural alcohols in subterranean formations for the same purpose.
In other applications, chemical grout has been injected into soils. Injection typically requires drilling out a hole in the ground. Once the hole is clear, the chemical grout, which is like cement, is injected into the hole under high pressure. Like cement, the chemical grout reacts with water to cure into a solidified mass. The chemical ground is sometimes a grout that expands during solidification. In addition, a catalyst is sometimes used to speed the reaction time.
Available liquid soil stabilizers are sometimes classified into one of three types: (1) ionic stabilizers, which are thought to work through cation exchange within a clay mineral; (2) polymer stabilizers, composed of various polymers; and (3) enzyme stabilizers, reported to consist of organic catalysts.
As an example of soil stabilization, liquid resin bonding fluids are available to treat soil. These are polymer materials that coalesce to create bonds between the soil or aggregate particles. They are in essence liquid glues that form a solid mass with the soil upon hardening. The resulting long molecular structures cross-link together to create a solid-mass that is durable and water resistant. A second example of available fluid soil stabilization is a liquid ionic stabilizer, widely believed to stabilize anionic soils and improve the load bearing of clayey soils.